October 14, 2006

"He is also the best memory I have left of my wife." Yohane Banda was too poor to take care of the child he says he loves and gave the child up to the "good lady," Madonna, who swept into Malawi to adopt a boy. If Madonna wanted to help, she could have simply given the man some money. Something tells me that in the end she will, but only after she tripped all over her own embarrassing desire to ooze with beneficence and maternal love. It's not so easy. Now, you look awful. The only way to extricate yourself is to leave the boy and a pile of money with Banda and fund some very substantial project to help a big group of children in Malawi.

Do they really want to help these kids from these lands of misery? Is a lifetime of limos and nannies and sultan-level wealth what they think will help these kids - usually just one kid - from these lands of misery?

The government of Malawi and at least one agency with some clout obviously thinks it's a pretty big deal.

Madonna is being ridiculous. "Tally ho, Guy, wouldn't it be a grand time and create buzz for us if we completely uproot a kid from some African country -- any of them will do, so long as the kid has really dark skin. Let's swoop in and get one."

There are plenty of poor kids right here in the United States that could use good foster homes and adoptive parents. Many of them are even black. But that wouldn't make a cool international splash, would it?

Seven,,u assume too much. U don't know, or should u pretend to speak for anyone on their reasoning for anything..but i would say this too u....'get ur international spash on...' but i would expect raising a foster kid would take too much time out of ur luv of critiqueing all the things u wish u were doing. same to u george and johnny

Sadly, little African kids have now become the latest fad for the jetset celebrity crowd, kind of like chihuahuas were a while back. The only difference is that when Paris Hilton loses interest in Tinkerbelle, she can always fob her off on some poor old Ft. Lauderdale granny. What happens when Madonna loses interest in her latest fashion accessory?

Seriously, it is harder to find good reporting on US celebrities than it is to get the daily police blotter from Pyongyang.

Celebrities increasingly use their infants, natural born or adopted, as profit centers at worst or at best to stimulate the ceaseless publicity needed to drive sales and brand awareness. This would be a good story for Forbes. (Another great story would explain why so many celebs adopt obscure diseases as their "causes" and throw gala dinners which are then lavishly photographed for InStyle magazine.)

What's truly sad is that Madonna's home town is Bay City, Michigan, a few hours from Detroit. Surely she knows that there are many, many black children in need there. Sad and creepy.

Without commenting on the trend of celebs adopting African kids, from the article, it sounds like Madonna probably didn't realize she was tearing this kid away from his father. The orphanage sent her a list of kids who needed to be adopted, which included David. The father told the orphanage David was entirely in their care, and later told Madonna personally that he was giving her his son. It sounds like later on, when he had a chance to think about what had happened, he realized that he had either made a mistake or had been pressured into giving up the baby. At this point, I agree that Madonna should rectify the situation, but from the facts given in the article I don't know if she could have been expected to know.

Interesting to bring up the dogs. I just saw an ad in the Miami Herald online for what they call "handbag dogs." There was a special sale for them will all kinds and colors of them. I guess I just don't understand celebrities any more.